On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rachel Canter, the founding executive director of Mississippi First and the new director of education policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, joins Mike and David to discuss what really fueled Mississippi’s dramatic gains in student achievement. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining the impact of Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program on college enrollment and graduation rates.
Category: Uncategorized
Alarm clocks, baby strollers, battery-powered sex toys, and thermos bottles may vanish from American stores by the end of May
FACT: Alarm clocks, baby strollers, battery-powered sex toys, and thermos bottles may vanish from American stores by the end of May.
THE NUMBERS: Year-on-year drop in container arrivals at Port of Los Angeles –
| May 2024 / May 2025* | -33.0% |
| February 2008 / February 2009 | -32.6% |
| March 2019 / March 2020 | -30.9% |
* Comparing scheduled container cargo arrivals for April 27 to May 17, 2025, with actual cargo arrivals in May 2024.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
Here’s the Treasury Secretary Mr. Bessent in March, advocating higher tariffs and lecturing his audience: “Cheap goods are not the essence of the American dream.”
Since then the Trump administration has released a turbid stream of extra-Constitutional “emergency” and “national security” decrees raising tariff rates, mixed with amendments to these decrees to raise rates higher, exempt some goods, or change policy for particular countries. They are complex and frequently change (as with yesterday’s complicated rewrite of the March auto decree). But taken together, and as of this week, they basically leave a tariff rate of 10% for almost all goods (with exceptions for many Canadian and Mexican products and energy), plus the 1.4% average for the permanent, Congressionally authorized tariff system, and 145% on most Chinese-made goods (with exceptions for smartphones and some other IT goods). One result of all these sudden new costs: per press reports, a group of retail CEOs informed the administration a week ago that Americans may start seeing “empty shelves” as early as mid-May. In more specific terms, as the prices of many foods, most clothing and shoes, back-to-school goods, and much else rise, a swathe of cheap and popular mid-range home goods — blenders and alarm clocks, umbrellas and strollers, sex toys and toasters — might vanish altogether.
Here’s why:
A 10% tariff means higher prices, but (as we noted in the case of toasters last summer) probably won’t much change production or trade patterns. The 145% tariff on Chinese goods, by contrast, will often act more like an embargo. A striking New York Times visualization last Sunday (subs. req.), built around the image of a house, suggests the likely impact by reporting the Chinese share of American imports for dozens of home goods: 10% or lower for rugs, mattresses, TVs, and cars; 20%-50% for metal shelves, refrigerators, washers and driers; 90% and above for thermos bottles, microwave ovens, and umbrellas; a 99% peak for alarm clocks and, well, toasters.
Official data on the real-world impacts of all these decrees — trade flows, prices, employment, growth — will flow in slowly over May and June. Some early clues, though, come from the “Port Optimizer” system run by the Port of Los Angeles, which offers near-future forecasts of container-ship arrivals. It predicts 17 ships carrying 83,351 containers* this week, 14 ships carrying 71,520 containers next week, and (a bit more optimistically) 18 carrying 89,917 containers the week after that. Compared to May of 2024, this suggests container arrivals have dropped by 30% to 35%. This would rival or possibly exceed the 32.6% year-on-year fall in February 2009 (after the 2008 financial crisis) and the 30.9% drop in March 2020 as the U.S. economy closed during the COVID-19 pandemic as the steepest decline of the 21st century.
The Port’s cargo figures also hint at where this drop is fastest. It handled $112 billion worth of incoming imports from China last year — a third of its $333 billion in total cargo traffic, and about a quarter of the $439 billion in all U.S. goods imports from China. With the 10% global tariff likely to raise prices and reduce but not end trade, and the 145% tariffs on most Chinese goods after the April 2 decree making many goods prohibitively expensive, the Port Optimizer’s vessel-arrival forecasts — which mirror press reports on plummeting April ship departures from China — likely show a steep plunge in arrivals of Chinese-made home goods.
What would this mean in practice? Overall, China’s share of U.S. goods imports last year was a large but not overwhelming 13%. (In dollars, $439 billion of $3.295 trillion.) As the Times visualization shows, though, China’s share imports is highest in consumer goods, and for some small home appliances exceeds 90%. A quick twelve-product table, with some products used in the Times piece (though using “quantity” rather than “value” shares) and others from our own files:
| Product | Value | Quantity (total) | Quantity (China) | Chinese Share | Alternative sources |
| Alarm clocks | $50 million | 11.49 million | 11.43 million | 99% | Taiwan |
| Battery-powered sex toys | $450 million | 45.0 million | 43.6 million | 97% | Korea, Germany |
| Baby strollers | $392 million | 5.68 million | 5.45 million | 96% | Vietnam |
| Microwave ovens | $1.40 billion | 19.7 million | 18.5 million | 95% | Malaysia, Thailand |
| Hair dryers | $406 million | 23.8 million | 20.9 million | 88% | Cambodia |
| Clarinets | $35 million | 96,200 | 66,200 | 67% | Indonesia |
| Blenders & juicers | $744 million | 45.0 million | 38.4 million | 85% | Mexico |
| Toothbrushes | $289 million | 1.24 billion | 755 million | 61% | Germany, Vietnam |
| Hammers | $111 million | 21.15 million | 10.30 million | 49% | Mexico |
| Ball-point pens | $481 million | 2.75 billion | 1.28 billion | 47% | Japan, Mexico |
| Vacuum cleaners | $2.98 billion | 63.6 million | 22.2 million | 35% | Vietnam |
| Razors | $482 million | 1.47 billion | 210 million | 14% | Mexico, Greece |
These are just the sort of “cheap goods” Mr. Bessent dismissed in March: kitchen gadgets, low-priced clocks, baby goods, personal care products and simple tools, musical instruments, and so forth. The razors, vacuum cleaners, hammers, and pens at the bottom of the table will likely cost more in the coming weeks and months but stay on the shelves. The clocks, sex toys, strollers, and microwaves near the top, though, might not be available at any price.
So: Nationwide, Americans will be deciding over the next months whether Bessent is right. More personally and locally, if you’re looking to restock your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, workbench, home office, etc. with small but useful things this year, do it now.
* Technically 83,351 “TEU”. The TEU, standing for “twenty-foot equivalent unit” is the standard measurement of container traffic. One TEU is one 20’ x 21’ x 8.5’ container, and a 40-foot container counts as two TEU.
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
- Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
- Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
- Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
- Offer a positive alternative.
Data:
The New York Times illustrates the Chinese place in American home goods.
The Port of Los Angeles’ container statistics, with monthly totals in TEUs since 1995 and annual totals since 1989.
… the Port Optimizer tracks week-by-week vessel and cargo arrivals.
… the Port’s “Facts and Figures” page.
And the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Dataweb.
From the administration:
Bessent dismisses affordable goods in March.
… and last week, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett says no chance of empty shelves, everything is under control.
Public reaction so far:
Public opinion probably won’t set hard until Americans get a few months’ experience of the tariffs’ real-world effects. The interim judgment, though, is bleak. Just as the Port Optimizer gives before-the-facts hints at actual cargo arrivals, data from seven major poll releases this past week — Pew, Fox News, Washington Post/ABC News, New York Times/Siena, CNN/SSRS, NPR/Marist, and Harvard’s Institute of Politics (of Americans under 30) — provides a snapshot of attitudes after the April 2 decree but before the real-life impact. We’ll look in more detail in a later Trade Fact, but the average across all six media polls has 60% of Americans “disapproving” of tariff increases while 36% “approve.” Among the individual polls, “disapproval” rates range from 55% to 65%, and “approval” from 33% to 40%.
And for HTS enthusiasts:
For Dataweb users, Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes for the 12 products in the table are:
82052000 for hammers;
821210 and 821220 for razors;
850811, 850819, and 850860 for vacuum cleaners;
8509400015 and 8509400030 for blenders and juicers;
851650 for microwave ovens;
851631 for hair dryers,
87150000 for strollers;
9019102020 and 9010102030 for battery-powered sex toys. We haven’t included non-battery options, not because of prudishness but because HTS does not give them their own lines, instead discreetly concealing them in general “other goods” lines in Chapters 39 and 40.
91051100 and 91051900 for alarm clocks;
9205904020 for clarinets;
96032100 for toothbrushes;
96082000 for ball-point pens.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.
New PPI Report Slams Trump’s First 100 Days of Foreign Policy as Most Disastrous in Modern History
WASHINGTON — In his first 100 days back in office, President Trump has severely undermined the United States’ global standing — alienating key allies, destabilizing the international trade and financial systems, and emboldening America’s adversaries to act without consequence.
As the world fears what Trump may do next, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released “Donald Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad First Hundred Days on Foreign Policy,” a report by Peter Juul, PPI’s Director of National Security Policy. The report outlines the policies that Trump and his team implemented since his inauguration.
“This administration has managed in just 100 days to do what no foreign adversary could: undermine U.S. global leadership, fracture critical alliances, and inject chaos into the core of our national defense,” said Juul.
Juul outlines how the White House has destroyed its reputation in three key ways:
- An Unprovoked, Irrational, and Destructive Global Trade War: Trump’s global tariffs sparked market turmoil and increased prices for Americans while seeding grave doubts about America’s reliability as a partner.
- Alienating Allies and Losing Friends: From repeatedly calling Canada “the 51st State” to the proposed annexation of the Danish territory Greenland, the U.S. is pushing even its closest allies away.
- Ineptitude, Chaos, and Politicization: The Signal chat scandal — coupled with the politically motivated purging of staff — highlights the dysfunction within Trump’s Department of Defense.
Juul warns that if current trends continue, the consequences could be long-lasting, if not irreversible. America’s reliability as an ally, its military effectiveness, and its global standing are all at risk.
Read and download the report here.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on X.
###
Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
Donald Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad First Hundred Days On Foreign Policy
INTRODUCTION
A president’s first hundred days in office is an arbitrary but nonetheless useful benchmark. It provides a chance to evaluate and make preliminary judgments about a president’s early performance and policy priorities.
In his first hundred days back in office, President Donald Trump has given a masterclass on how to destroy a nation’s reputation and damage its interests around the world. It’s the most disastrous first hundred days for a president since the term passed into popular usage more than nine decades ago — particularly when it comes to national security. Indeed, Trump is personally responsible for three major national security debacles that have defined his first hundred days: launching an unprovoked and irrational trade war with the rest of the world, actively alienating America’s closest and oldest allies while cozying up to dictators and long-time adversaries, and displaying a shocking level of ineptitude in the conduct of foreign affairs as well as a politicization of national defense.
Trump’s foreign policy has already damaged American national security in deep and profound ways. In just over three months, Trump and his preferred policies have made America less secure, less prosperous, and less trusted in the world.
It’s worth taking a closer work to see just how.
Read the full report.
PPI Statement on Passing of Paul Hofheinz
WASHINGTON — The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) joins friends and colleagues around the world in mourning the passing of Paul Hofheinz, co-founder and president of the Lisbon Council.
“The PPI community mourns the loss of our good friend and frequent partner in Brussels, Paul Hofheinz,” said Will Marshall, President of PPI. “Paul was an American whose passion for European unity and prosperity, as well as stronger transatlantic bonds, led him to found the Lisbon Council, a leading Brussels think tank. He was a rigorous and creative thinker with an open and generous spirit, and his voice will be missed.”
“Paul was a wonderful collaborator, generously sharing ideas and insights from Brussels to Washington with PPI over the past 15 years,” said Lindsay Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of PPI. “He was a brilliant thought leader and a spirited debater, always pushing for better policy on both sides of the Atlantic. His leadership, intellect, and friendship will be deeply missed.”
Paul Hofheinz was a visionary leader whose passion for European unity, economic progress, and strong transatlantic ties defined his career. Over the past 15 years, Paul became a valued partner and friend to PPI, helping to forge lasting connections between policymakers in Brussels and Washington and enriching our work with his ideas, insights, and collaborative spirit.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
###
Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
Kahlenberg for The Bulwark Podcast: The Case for Class-Based Affirmative Action
Mona Charen talks with Richard Kahlenberg about a proposal to make college admissions more fair in a post-racial-preferences world.
Kahlenberg for The Wall Street Journal: The Merits of ‘Economic Affirmative Action’
While most Americans applaud the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down racial preferences in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, they also support affirmative action for economically disadvantaged students of all races. Jason Riley’s column “‘Economic Affirmative Action’ Won’t Work” (Upward Mobility, April 23), however, raises a legitimate question: Would affirmative action for working-class students—an approach I encourage in my new book “Class Matters”—lead to academic “mismatch” for underprepared students and violate principles of merit?
In its defense of racial preferences in the litigation, Harvard also claimed that economic affirmative action was an unworkable alternative because it would reduce standards. But simulations that Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono and I conducted as expert witnesses for Students for Fair Admissions showed that the mean SAT of students admitted through economic affirmative action at Harvard would be at the 98th percentile. As Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in his concurring opinion, class-based affirmative action “would barely affect the academic credentials of each incoming class.”
Moreover, most fair-minded people recognize that in assessing a student’s potential, it would be absurd to ignore whether a 1400 SAT score was achieved by a pupil who attended poorly funded schools and worked two jobs after school to help his family make ends meet or by one who had been given everything in life. Considering academic achievement in light of hurdles surmounted is the best measure of true merit.
Manno for Philanthropy Daily: Mapping Pathways to Economic Opportunity: A Guide for Donors
Recent economic volatility has prompted speculation on Americans’ financial futures and job prospects. But whether we are entering a recession or a new era of “onshoring” jobs, one fact remains: individuals need practical pathways to good jobs and upward mobility. What kind of job opportunities do young people and workers say they want? And what kind of employment opportunities exist?
Any donor investing in the long-term economic well-being of Americans must answer these two questions. In this article, I explain the current situation among the young and employable and describe five ways of thinking about career pathway navigation.
Marshall for The Hill: Flailing Democrats Need to Build Coalitions, Not Primary Their Own Members
These are anxious times for our country. We are assailed hourly by a belligerent president who treats America’s laws, courts and civil liberties with utter contempt and imagines he can rule a free people by royal decree.
Are Democrats fighting hard enough against President Trump’s malicious policies and rampant abuses of power? Progressive activists say no, and they’re even threatening to unseat Democrats they claim are afraid to mix it up.
This is asinine — a return to the politics of subtraction that has locked the party out of power, effectively disarming it in the struggle with a rogue president.
The party’s left turn in reaction to Trump’s rise since 2016 has been a fiasco. It’s identified Democrats with soaring prices and living costs, sclerotic federal bureaucracies that can’t get things done, unrestricted illegal immigration, permissive attitudes toward crime and an illiberal politics of race and gender essentialism.
That has left the Democratic brand badly tarnished. Only 27 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party.
Kahlenberg for Inside Philanthropy: Class Matters Most: So Why Do Foundations Focus More on Race?
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen the nation’s richest institution of higher education, Harvard University, and the nation’s wealthiest philanthropy, the Gates Foundation, have their status as tax-exempt organizations questioned. President Donald Trump threatened to remove Harvard’s IRS exemption over a larger struggle with the university, while a conservative group, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by Edward Blum, filed a complaint with the IRS against the Gates Foundation for a minority-focused scholarship program.
A casual observer might see these disputes as part of a larger pattern of unwarranted right-wing political attacks on the nonprofit sector. But the two cases are, in fact, worlds apart.
Trump’s threats aimed at Harvard’s exempt status are part of a bigger war on universities in which the administration has bypassed due process rules and sought to micromanage private colleges. For example, in its letter, the administration called on Harvard to create a “critical mass” of conservatives on campus. Harvard, though flawed in many ways, refused, and it has been widely lauded for standing up to a bully. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which has been appropriately critical of the university’s lax attitude toward antisemitism, defended Harvard’s academic freedom.
Read more in Inside Philanthropy.
Kahlenberg for Slate: I Wrote the Book on Charter Schools. This Supreme Court Case Could Inadvertently Destroy Them.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is slated to consider a case that one education journal said could yield “the most significant legal decision to affect schooling in decades.” The justices will decide whether the religious liberty clause of the First Amendment requires the state of Oklahoma to fund the nation’s first religious charter school.
The central problem is that the educational institution in question, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, is not designed to promote liberal democratic values or e pluribus unum in a nation that desperately needs both. Instead, the school says its “ultimate goal” is “eternal salvation.” That is surely a valid objective for people who are members of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is not clear why Americans who adhere to other religious traditions, or to no religion at all, should be compelled to support the school.
Read more in Slate.
Marshall in The New York Times: How Four Democrats Who Saved the Party Before Would Do It Again
Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation about the future of the Democratic Party with four veteran strategists and reformers who spearheaded the New Democrat movement that helped elect Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992.
Will Marshall: Everything was mediated through the desires and demands of 100 worthy interest groups. What we said was: Look, we were not winning these elections for a reason. So the first thing is to let the public know you’ve heard their message. Then: What are the new ideas?
Marshall: We got a lot of mileage out of just the simple idea that there was a brain-dead politics of left and right that we had to get beyond, and that we needed generational change. Something fresh. Ending welfare as we know it. National service. Public school choice. Reinventing government. All that generated energy and excitement, and it helped that we had a next-generation team with Clinton and Al Gore. To redefine a failing party you need to capture imagination, and it’s got to be with a new offer, and it’s got to be with creative ideas.
Marshall: Through four years of President Joe Biden, we spoke to white college graduates incessantly on almost every dimension: economic, cultural, foreign policy. We stopped talking to the 62 percent of the electorate that doesn’t have a college degree. I think this is the hardest cultural challenge for the party right now. We don’t know how to address their economic aspirations in a way that doesn’t sort of throw government benefits at them. We’re terrified if we do we’ll somehow be crossing the line, becoming racist or nativist or xenophobic. We are now in this class configuration that was mercilessly revealed by this election. We have lost the knack of hearing, listening, going to working-class people and speaking the language that they understand. So you see the party retracting geographically, demographically. We’re a shrunken party now.
Read the entire conversation in The New York Times.
Senate to vote next week on ‘terminating’ Trump tariffs
FACT: Senate to vote next week on ‘terminating’ Trump tariffs.
THE NUMBERS: IMF World Economic Outlook forecast changes from January 2025 to April 2025 –
| World growth projection | -0.5% lower |
| U.S. growth projection | -0.9% lower |
| World inflation projection | 0.4% higher |
| U.S. inflation projection | 1.0% higher |
WHAT THEY MEAN:
As the Senate prepares to vote next week on a resolution from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Finance Committee Ranking Member) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) terminating the Trump administration’s April 2 tariff decree, here’s a sad Friday bulletin from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley News:
“Mack Trucks will lay off 250 to 350 workers at its Macungie-area facility, the company confirmed Friday. The job reductions will occur over the next three months in part because of market uncertainty and the impact of tariffs, the truck maker said in a prepared statement. ‘Heavy-duty truck orders continue to be negatively affected by market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes, and the impact of tariffs,’ company spokeswoman Kimberly Pupillo said.”
Pulling back for a broader view, the International Monetary Fund’s new World Economic Outlook — out yesterday morning — drops the Fund’s January optimism about a “growing and normalizing” global economy for a year of uncertainty, slowed growth, and rising inflation. Samples:
“In the United States, consumer, business, and investor sentiment was optimistic at the beginning of the year but has recently shifted to a notably more pessimistic stance as uncertainty has taken hold and new tariffs have been announced. In labor markets, hiring has slowed in many countries, and layoffs have risen. Meanwhile, progress on disinflation has mostly stalled, and inflation has edged upward in some cases.”
…
“[G]lobal growth is … lower than the projections in the January 2025 WEO Update, by 0.5 percentage points. … U.S. growth is projected to decrease in 2025 to 1.8 percent, 1 percentage point lower than the rate for 2024 as well as 0.9 percentage points lower than the forecast rate in January. The downward revision is a result of greater policy uncertainty, trade tensions, and a softer demand outlook, given slower-than-anticipated consumption growth. Tariffs are also expected to weigh on growth in 2026.
…
“For advanced economies, the inflation forecast for 2025 has been revised upward by 0.4 percentage points since January, [and] the US forecast by 1.0 percentage point. For the United States, this reflects stubborn price dynamics in the services sector as well as a recent uptick in the growth of the price of core goods (excluding food and energy) and the supply shock from recent tariffs.”
Put concisely, on the IMF’s “macro” scale, Mr. Trump’s tariff decrees have cut $300 billion of U.S. growth this year, raised U.S. inflation by a point, and damaged financial markets. The contraction of Pennsylvania’s Mack Truck operation is a local and personal example of all this, and it’s far from rare. Some more scenes from the past week: Minnesota manufacturers canceling expansion plans; Tennessee Asian restaurants, North Carolina craft brewers and Arizona auto dealerships facing sudden price spikes and loss of customers; Indiana landscapers seeing “fear in the market” and orders put on hold; Texas’ natural gas exporters grappling simultaneously with falling gas prices, higher port construction costs, and potential retaliations; and (seen through the eyes of Merced Rep. Adam Gray) California’s Central Valley farmers worrying about looming foreign retaliations against their $24 billion in exports of almonds, wine, vegetables, and other crops.
What might be done? Congress, not presidents, has Constitutional power over tariff rates and can stop the bleeding whenever it chooses. An inflection point will come next week as Sens. Wyden and Paul, having successfully gotten the Senate to pass one resolution in March to terminate the February Canada/Mexico/China “emergency” decree, now propose a second. This Joint Resolution would void the full April 2 decree, including its worldwide 10% tariff, its 125% tariff on Chinese-made goods, and its (temporarily suspended but not canceled) “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50% on 57 countries. Their concise 72-word bill reads as follows:
“Joint Resolution terminating the national emergency declared to impose global tariffs.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
“That pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared on April 2, 2025, by the President in Executive Order 14257 (90 Fed. Reg. 15041) is terminated effective on the date of the enactment of this joint resolution.”
Senate passage of course is only one step. In their offices on the Capitol Building’s south end, Republican House leaders have spent the spring devising exotic procedural devices to avoid a vote on tariffs. It’s worked so far, but their passivity, is not consensus. Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) leads all 19 House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee (the one responsible for tariff policy) in a Resolution to void both February’s Canada/Mexico/China decree and the April 2 decree. And Constitution-friendly Republican Rep. Don Bacon from Nebraska offers another to require Congressional approval for any future “emergency” or “national security” tariffs.
Looking ahead to next week’s first step, a lot of harm is already done. And whether in the IMF’s “global economy” view, or the Lehigh Valley News’ “neighborhoods and communities” perspective, it is metastasizing daily. The sooner Congress reclaims its authority and restores Constitutionally legitimate policymaking, the less the harm will spread, and the more quickly the U.S. and the world alike will heal.
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
- Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
- Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
- Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
- Offer a positive alternative.
The Constitution and its friends:
U.S. Constitution text, from the National Archives. See Article I, Section 8, first clause, for “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.”
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) propose terminating the April 2 “emergency” declaration.
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and House Ways and Means Democrats propose terminating both the April 2 global and February 1 Canada/Mexico/China “emergency” decrees, and require any future “emergency” and “national security” tariffs to get Congressional approval.
And Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) with Foreign Relations Ranking Member Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.), Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) with a look-ahead bill to require a Congressional vote on any future tariff imposition.
Real-world perspectives:
The Lehigh Valley News on layoffs at Mack Truck.
… and State Rep. Josh Siegel appeals for Congressional delegation help.
Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.) on tariffs, retaliations, and the dent they’re putting in Central Valley farm exports and rural income.
Tennessee’s Asian restaurants and North Carolina’s craft brewers grapple with price shocks and lost business.
Arizona auto dealers and Indiana landscapers ponder falling sales, while Texas’ LNG exporters watch prices drop while infrastructure costs rise.
And economic analysis:
A gloomy look around the world from IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
And former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (video, via the Peterson Institute for International Economics), explains the fallacies of Trump administration tariffs and their likely effects at home.
For more detail, the IMF’s April World Economic Outlook has growth, inflation, and other projections, and analysis of tariff shocks, business uncertainty, and their likely impacts.
… and as a comparison, its happier late-January Outlook update, with our justifiably apprehensive comment at the time.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.
Ainsley and Mattinson for The New European: How Populism Gives Youth Wings
As Europe reels from the sudden gear shifts of the US government, it is tempting to see Donald Trump as an outlier, isolated in his endeavour to reshape the world order. But while Trump’s tariffs agenda has mixed support even among Americans, its radicalism has been enabled by a restlessness and yearning for change that is clearly present in Europe, too.
Many progressives took heart from the victory of Labour and Keir Starmer – for whom we have both worked – last July. There was some relief, too, at the election of Freidrich Merz’s CDU in Germany, which might have beaten the Social Democrats but at least denied success to the far right AfD and its troubling political agenda. Yet restlessness with “politics as usual” – seen to be offering the same tired answers – is gaining pace rather than abating.
Voter research that we conducted immediately after Germany’s election, for a project on behalf of the US-based Progressive Policy Institute, offered few crumbs of comfort. We asked voters who had previously supported Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats why they had changed their vote. The answers sounded familiar to us from our campaigns for Labour in the UK, and echoed views we had heard in the US battleground states after the US election last autumn.
Read more in The New European.
Ainsley for The Spectator’s Coffee House Shots Podcast: St George’s Day: Who is the Most Patriotic Leader?
Happy St George’s Day! To celebrate, we thought we would discuss who is the most patriotic political leader — and why some struggle to communicate their love of country.
Keir Starmer declared in an interview with the Mirror this morning that Labour is ‘the patriotic party’. This follows a more concerted effort from those within the party to become more comfortable with the flag. But is Keir Starmer actually a patriot? How will the ‘battle of the Union Jack’ play out at the local elections? And does Reform have a point to prove when it comes to patriotism?
Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Claire Ainsley, former executive director of policy for the Labour party, now at the Progressive Policy Institute.
BEAMing Into BEAD: LEO Satellite Constellations and Their Role in Closing the Digital Divide
INTRODUCTION
As modern life becomes increasingly reliant on access to the Internet, closing the digital divide is crucial to addressing economic inequality. The digital divide refers to the gap between those who have access to the Internet and those who do not. Increasingly, that divide severely limits economic opportunities for people in rural areas, resulting in many feeling left behind by today’s economy.
Recognizing this, Congress created the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which was signed into law in late 2021. IIJA authorized over $42 billion to connect all Americans to the internet and promote the adoption of this technology. The Biden Administration acted quickly to establish a notice of funding opportunity, which went out in May 2022.
Unfortunately, due to the extensive bureaucracy and unrelated criteria instituted around the program, not a single American has been connected via the BEAD program for broadband access nearly four years after Congress passed legislation directing the program to be established. For instance, companies participating in the program must meet a host of labor and climate resiliency requirements despite those requirements having no direct benefit to the goal of the program: closing the digital divide. This has opened debate around how to get Americans connected faster.
Congressional Republicans and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have pushed for a variety of reforms for the program. This paper will focus on examining the debate around one key fix: making LEO satellite broadband an option for states to include in their plans without the roadblocks that are currently in place.
Democrats — along with some Republicans in the Senate — have pushed back on the idea of modifying the BEAD program in light of where states are in the process of finalizing their implementation plans and with concerns that further opening the program to LEO satellite broadband equates to a giveaway to special government employee and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
These issues are valid, and any modification to the program needs to be done with an eye towards mitigating any delays resulting from requirement changes, ensuring states retain the flexibility to select the technologies that are the best fits for given areas, and maintaining competition within the nascent LEO satellite broadband market. However, appropriately addressing these items and further inclusion of LEO satellite broadband in the program are not mutually exclusive.